tkhayes

true, but if eveyrone is depressed economically, then there is no money - no money means no purchases , or at least fewer purchases. If everyone sees a 30% downturn in spending, then China sees a 30% downturn in output and 30% layoffs, etc. But you are right, they are used to working hard for little or nothing, hence why they wil recover faster than us; they had less distance to fall.

I predict that real estate has a lot further to fall, therefore, foreclosures, homelessness and all the stuff that goes with the real estate fall will also increase. I do see a movement from the larger banks to smaller ones since the large banks are not really interested in helping refinance/restructure, but they might get the message if their customer base starts to exit. Profits on Wall street will increase, mostly because companies reduce expenses on nasty things like EMPLOYEES, and therefore from the top down, all we will hear is about how well the recovery is going and how well everything is with the Dow above 10K and all that crap. Which only matters if you actually OWN stocks. China will eventually fall, since no one around the world is buying any/enough of their products. THey too will eventually recover as they are far more resilient that we are. USA is fairly resilient, so we might fair OK in the long haul (if more regulation in the economy, health care and the tax system take place), but will most likely continue on the delusion that we can run an economy based on making money from money alone. And we will do little or nothing to enhance our manufacturing base and rebuilding the economy in a grass-roots fashion. USA population will continue to hope for the good ol' days (like 2001-2005) where everyone had excesses of everything and we will continue to work for less with fewer benefits, because SOMEDAY, it will all come back. Wall St will relish and foster this sort of delusion because that is how they continue to make profits and drive up the stock market at the expense of EVERYTHING else, including their own people and country. Eventually, we will crash hard again, probably in 5-10 years because we have changed NOTHING significant during the last crash. All we do is try to maintain the systems that got us here. in 20-50 years, the poor will be so poor and the rich will be so rich, that internal security will become our biggest issue, with the military being used to protect the USA Hierarchy against its own people. A "French Revolution" style event may very well take place. Depends on how much of the military abandons their own ranks to support the people and how many stay on to protect the 'delusion'. I will probably be dead by then, so who gives a fuck anyway - I'm just in it for the money and me baby......

that's good to know, I guess. At least I know not to upgrade to W7 right yet. We have run JumpRun 5 for years, but the development is dead and they do not plan to update the product. Start looking for other solutions now while you can.

c'mon, 12000 women?? No way! I am sure there were no more than about 11,200......

never seen it in 29 years and only heard about it once or twice. Pulled myself twice very high due to ice crystals once and out of control spin once. I give all my students the option to pull, and an alti, and teach them all that stuff while on a 20 minute call with no problems at all.

"It's not a palindrome. The palindrome of Bolton would be Notlob!"

Video is now available, at TK's Mac site http://gallery.me.com/davidtkhayes#100350 pass it on,

this is so sad - they already set up a Facebook Memory page - that is cool. But wow, Pat and me had a few stories, but I cannot say we were super close friends or anything, just that we did a LOT of big way skydives together. I learned a lot from him and he was pretty fucking cool guy. very sad.

yes Tim and Sherry are 'nice people', but someone died on their watch. They are to blame because of a culture at their dropzone that allowed tandems to get in an airplane without a harness properly done up. My understanding is that this was the 'norm' for some TI's and some passengers on the DZ, but of course, that will not likely be admitted by anyone after the fact. When the space shuttle blew up, it was an o-ring, but the investigation that followed found flaws in the the systems and processes all the way up to the top of the food chain. Every accident is a chain of events, and can be prevented by breaking that chain at any point. In this case, that INCLUDES Tim and Sherry. They left Ted Strong to stand alone, they accepted and took NO responsibility. 'nice people' or not, that is something that makes them 'fuckheads', and the accident, which had nothing to do with Ted Strong, is now (possibly) bringing down Strong Enterprises, and they certainly do not seem to be doing anything to help out. That also makes them fuckheads. "Parable;"- My Uncle Fred is a nice guy too. He would give you the shirt off his back, loan you money, help you build that garage in your back yard, put his kids through college, worked hard his whole life. He a 'great guy'. But he has this problem with groping young children. That makes him a FUCKHEAD, despite everything else that he might do. Absofuckinglutely! So who is to blame for not catching it? My point exactly. responsibility is shared amongst MANY people on the DZ, from the DZO, to the people who trained her, to the TI that geared her up, to the TI himself, the cameraperson, the other TI's on that load, and for that matter, even the other skydivers on that load for not speaking up. No one gets out of an airplane with a tandem harness that looks like hers did....UNLESS that method of putting a tandem harness on a student was 'normal' and had been seen many times before; accepted in the 'culture' on the Dropzone as the way things were done.

Mike Gruwell USPA search attached, he is a tandem instructor, AFF instructor, and even an S&TA, Pro rating, etc, all current ratings. S&TA's are appointed by the Regional Director, and I frankly have issues with that. HOWEVER, yes, Mike Gruwell did actually make a 'mistake' as opposed to "culturally enhanced gross negligence", and yes, we admitted and said so, and he stood up and took his lumps, IMO. But someone still died on his watch, due to what he did (or failed to do) and he still got his ratings back when perhaps he should not have. Again, the situation is not one of a 'bad landing' or an AAD fire, it is death. And Robin; frankly, I don't give a fuck what lawyer reads my shit here, I am not saying anything that I do not have the right to say or that should not be said.

BULLSHIT! - where exactly should we be having this discussion? Maybe info like this should be posted VERY publicly. It might actually inspire the plaintiff or the lawyers to go after the right people. And I do not remember any case where a lawyer subpoena'd someone over a post in DZ.com. --------- I got a lot of private emails in support of my comments, but I always have been one to 'speak my mind'. While it sometimes gets me into trouble, my experience in life is that it keeps me out of more trouble than it gets me into. Not sure why more people are not speaking 'their mind', but sort of understand with all the USPA politics. But we (USPA and skydiving) are simply hanging ourselves in the environment of 'not speaking up' as well. Mike Gruwell does the same shit, loses his ratings, whines, and gets his ratings back again. WTF? A lot of that seemed to be hush hush or was at the time. I am going to start showing up at meetings and publicly fucking speaking my mind if we do not change the culture somewhat. we cut secret deals with lawsuits, we suspend ratings for minor infractions, yet let people get away with criminally negligent homicide (or at least manslaughter) Yes we (USPA and skydiving) need members and yes we cannot "eat our young", but we also need to recognize when someone , some DZO, or some operation is a liability and do something about it. No one wants to be part of an organization that will hang you on your first mistake or infraction. I have made my share of those mistakes. But those are isolated, not cultural problems within the structure of a tandem operation. But some of us do not want to be part of an organization that will not stand up against those that fuck it up for all of us. USPA by-laws allow a Board Member to be removed. Sheri/Tim Butcher should be removed via that process, and have his/her ratings removed as a complicit part of the negligence that happened at their dropzone. USPA would actually gain a lot of respect from people like me if that were to happen. But Sheri & Tim have too many friends, I expect. Tough to get the message across to the voting members, when someone gets elected typically with less than 100 votes. And we all make mistakes, but this is not a malfunction gone bad, or an AAD fire, or an aircraft near-miss. This is a dead woman. If they snugged that lumbar strap just 6 inches, she probably would be alive. Fucking ridiculous IMO

"The incompetent actions of one person" AND one dropzone as well. The actions of that tandem instructor were considered 'the norm' (I believe) and the dropzone (I believe), over a long time I expect, helped to develop the culture of how-to-fit-a-harness. The TI is liable, but the DZO's are JUST as liable for allowing such negligence to happen. No one is minding the store. No other TI's intercepted it either, leading me to believe that it was probably the 'normal' way to fit 'short-fat-people' by loosening everything off to the limits. At least they all go down in history as the idiots that brought down Strong Enterprises. way to go - fuckheads.

You mean George W Bush???

ASKED and ANSWERED a dozen fucking times in other threads.... as opposed to INSURANCE companies regulating my life. I already pay a fat tax, a beer tax, and dozens of other taxes. The insurance companies 'tax' me for my lifestyle and they tax me for anything is may or might be wrong with me in the future. you are living in an illusion if you think that private insurance is the 'answer' and some how they will take care of us when we are sick or injured. no argument from me - did you write your congressperson to ask for that? I did, many times....

asked and answered a dozen fucking times in other threads.... I will raise jump prices, as will everyone else I expect. Duh! which part of the legislation addresses hook turns? I must have missed that..... In case you had not noticed, skydivers already get screwed by the insurance companies. or maybe you missed that.

it means, they've tried pretty much everything else to stop this freight train, so now we have to try 'constitutionality' nice try, The government, the last time I checked, is run by the people for the people, so if the people WANT health care reform, then the people GET health care reform. No I do not think this bill is that great, but it is a step in the right direction. I expect everyone will be required to buy health insurance, and the insurance companies will fuck it all up, and the government will then take the next step - single payer. So rather than 'constitutional arguments', maybe they could instead spend their efforts trying to do some thing 'for the people' my $0.02

I didn't know that women had 'small penises'

we eat meat - that is a fact. No one (unless they are a sadist) likes to see inhumane treatment of animals, but money, demand and costs drive people to what is necessary, not necessarily what they want. A chicken lives for 6 weeks before slaughter. Not much of a life - and every inch of that life is controlled in temperature, confinement, food, water and then it gets killed. Not a bad life, just a very very short one. You can raise your own, but if you want to eat, then eventually you need to cut his head off and watch it wiggle and run around, then gut and pluck it. Stinky fucking mess. And it will cost you a ton more than the $1.69/pound or whatever you pay at the store. In the end, that chicken is just as dead as the first one. Found This: probably fairly accurate. We kill millions and millions of animals every day so we can eat. I will pay more money for 'humane' lifestyles and treatment, but in the end, they are still dead.

I used to host kick-ass house parties in Calgary in the 80's. I would always invite any celebrity that would be in town, actors, musicians -whatever, figuring someday someone WOULD come to a party. Judy Norton Taylor (Mary Ellen of the Walton's) was in town at a dinner theatre and I called them to leave a msg for her to come to a skydiver party (she used to jump, maybe still does) She called me back and we chatted for a while, but sadly, she could not make the party. Also talked with Jamie Farr from MASH under the same circumstances - he does not jump, but I almost convinced him to come to my party. I took a couple of the Crash Test Dummies up on tandems at SWOOP many years ago. One of the Rockefellers, and a few other well-knowns here at Skydive City as well. You sure meet a lot of people in this job

there are several flea/tick products - you just need to find the one that works for you. I had same experience, the ticks are ridiculous down here and fleas, once they get in your carpet at home, can take years to fully eradicate. At least with the comfortis/advantage/whatever products, the fleas might lay dormant in your house, but they do not cause your dogs any problems.

that what the court is for - he gets a trial and a jury of his peers if he chooses. The State/County have to make their case and prove it. I see a lot of loopholes that could be taken on the testing information and in particular what it means. hopefully (for him) his attorney understands all that and is capable of making those arguments. But if a standard of intoxication level exists out there for weed concentration in your blood, (and I expect it does), then he is probably fucked. most cases end in plea agreements, I expect that is what will happen.

solar will become more cost effective as electricity costs and oil costs rise. Energy costs money. As we run out of oil over the next 100 years or so, we will rely on burning coal more and more to generate needed electricity. That demand will be driven up of course as transportation needs and technology will increase as they have for a hundred years or more now. Electric cars are great but we need to then generate the power to charge their batteries. But electric generation and electric consumption in electric cars for example, is 4 or 5 times more efficient use of energy than burning fossil fuels inside a gasoline engine. And while citizens will invest slowly because the overhead is high and the savings are a long payback, but the real driver (at least in the USA) of solar technology will come from the corporations, not the citizens. When the corporations figure out how to control it and make a dollar from it, then they will invest in it. However, the government should still be investing in that technology. Just what we want - switching our energy needs from Middle Eastern Oil to Chinese Solar panels. comprehensive plans of al sorts of alternative energy is needed. wind turbines where it is windy, solar where it is sunny.etc. Electricity is fairly easy to transport - we already have an infrastructure in place to do it. The only thing that is going to make us stop using MORE of it, is by driving the price up to make people aware of its 'real cost' to society, but that is a whole separate debate in itself.

the bigger the breed the shorter their life - generally. Great Danes are pretty lucky to make 10 ever. I have now put down 4 or 5 dogs I have owned. It never gets any easier.

What??? Not sure what that means in the context of this thread..... see hear smell and taste are all driven by organs of the body. generally speaking, what I hear, you hear, what I see, you see, what I smell you smell, what I touch, you can touch and feel that same thing, assuming our organs are working and the environment in which we do these things is the same. REGARDLESS of the environment that we are in, what I 'believe' has little to do with what you 'believe' and is not likely to be the same. The five senses are not 'learned skills' as such, we are born with them. What we 'believe' is 100% learned over our lifetime.

always be careful with re-gifting. goes-around comes-around. I built a house here many years ago. Had the electrician, Tom and his wife over for dinner a month or so after we moved in. As they are leaving for the night, we got on the talk of whiskey..... Tom says "Hey you guys go that Canadian Club Whiskey - that's some good stuff.." (People keep buying me Canadian Club, just because I am Canadian) and I reply "Do you like it, cause I have a cabinet full of it? I can't stand the stuff." And I go to the liquor cabinet and open it up, I have 5 bottles of CC and I take one out for Tom. Tom is pretty 'uncomfortable', "No, I can't take your whiskey", but I insist, "Tom, I hate this shit - everyone buys me Canadian Whiskey 'cause I am Canadian, and I fucking hate it, take the fucking whiskey- I will never drink it." So Tom and his wife take it, albeit a little weird-like, and leave. So my wife turns to me and says "So how do you think Tom felt about you giving him back the bottle of whiskey he gave you as a house-warming gift only a month ago?" no shit, that really happened, and it was me - all the way baby.......